by Kim Schubert
She nodded, leaning slightly away from Gunnar. “Why do you want to touch me?” she asked warily.
“I can put people at ease sometimes,” I answered, not sure how much of the supernatural Gunner had enlightened her on.
After giving a long glance at Gunnar, who nodded his head soundly, she reached out her fingertips, just brushing my own. It was enough. I reached for her nervousness, fear, and braided it down, compressing it.
She sighed audibly. “Wow, thanks! That’s better than my meds.”
“No problem,” I answered, with a gentle smile
“So, I hear you have made progress,” I said, addressing Gunnar, clasping my hands in my lap.
He nodded. “Babe, wait in the room please.”
She left, casting a long look at what I hoped was a genuine smile on my tense face. Once the door closed, he leaned forward, his round glasses slipping down his equally round face. “They were supercharged.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head.
“They were genetically predisposition to become supernaturals, and my guess, judging from the tests I was able to perform, is that, once they had changed into either shifter or vampire, they would have been ahead of the pack in abilities.”
I sat there just staring at him for long moments before asking, “Who were?”
“The children; it was present in the young ones, but once puberty hit, their openness for change grew exponentially,” he answered, pushing his glasses up as I sat back in the couch, nodding.
“I really need to see that teacher,” I muttered to myself.
Chapter 17
After personally dropping off Gunnar and Cricket and seeing that they were compensated for their time under lockdown, Blake, Tate, and I headed out to Mr. Davis’s residence in hopes of finding out how our puppet master was able to locate the children.
Gazing out the window in the back seat, my eyes saw none of the beautiful countryside we traveled through as my brain worked on theory after theory.
“Did you hear me, Olivia?” Tate asked, peering behind at me.
“No,” I answered, still looking out the window.
“I asked if you had heard from Mercer,” Tate said.
Turning toward him, I shook my head. “No, not since Blake and I saw him last. Why?”
Tate smiled, turning to look at me. “Apparently, the Governor made an example of him, reprimanding him quite harshly in front of all of his peers.”
“Why?” I asked, not following.
Blake looked at me from the rearview mirror. “For breaking the arrangement with you,” he answered.
“I don’t see why it matters; I’m still working the case,” I said, looking between both of them.
“Yes, but when that information went public, the headlines put a great deal of bad publicity on the Governor and his staff for not using all available means to track the killer.” Tate smiled. “It gave us a bit of good press for once.”
“Needless to say, you probably have a few messages from Mercer,” Blake informed me as I looked at my now reassembled phone.
“Fuck,” I whispered as the tracker I had placed on Steven’s phone lit up close to us.
“What?” Tate and Blake said in unison.
“The tracker I put on Steven’s car; he’s close,” I answered, navigating the map, “less than a mile.”
“Do you want to follow him?” Blake asked as I watched the red dot flashing furiously in front of me.
“No,” I said, sighing, “my personal vendettas can’t get in the way of figuring out who the puppet master is now that we have this lead.”
“Dammit,” I hissed, watching the dot disappear off the screen. It only had a three-mile radius, and now the bastard was gone yet again.
“We will get him, Olie,” Blake said as I scowled at the guard gate we were passing through.
…
There are kills to send messages and there are kills of necessary. What we were looking at in Mr. Davis’s home was a kill of necessity. It was good news for us that we were making the puppet master nervous, but bad news for Mr. Davis.
His front door was ajar when we entered and no sign of forced entry, he knew his killer. The vampire’s smelled death instantly; it took me a while longer. The kill was fresh. Tate and Blake pulled in long breaths as they navigated through the front room and into an office.
Mr. Davis sat back against his leather chair, a single gunshot wound between his eyes. Thick, sticky blood dropped out the back of what use to be his head.
Dialing Mercer’s number, he picked up on the first ring. “Olivia,” he said awkwardly.
“We have another puppet master murder.” I relayed the address, adding, “Hurry up, I can only keep the vamps from investigating for so long,” before ending the call.
Sitting down on the steps outside, I was grateful the sun was starting to set so I didn’t end up burned. Tate and Blake sat next to me.
“Thoughts?” I asked, mulling over my own.
“We are getting closer,” Tate said as the dying light illuminated his coffee eyes.
“I agree,” Blake added. “Do you think it is strange that Steven was so close to here? The kill is fresh.”
He voiced my own thoughts. “I would love for him to be involved, but I am also prejudiced in thinking he had a hand in it.” Thinking about it more, I suggested aloud, “We could always call Logan to confirm his whereabouts.”
Tate scoffed, “Sure, you two get along wonderfully.”
“No, but poking at the hornets’ nest has yielded results so far,” I answered with a shrug.
“Lions’ den,” Tate corrected. To my raised eyebrow, he added, “Poking at the lions’ den has yielded results. But be careful; they bite.”
I smiled, showing my flat teeth. “So do I.”
The silence stretched as I worried my bottom lip, thinking of impossible scenarios that would involve Steven, but all were heavily seeped in my deep prejudice against him and held no merit.
Tate shifted as Blake stood stretching. “I’m going to walk around.”
“Want me to come with?” I asked, leaning forward, ready to stand.
“No,” he said with a smile, “I’ll yell if I can’t kill it.”
“Ha, ha,” I chuckled, rolling my eyes as he brushed my shoulder walking by.
Tate picked at the manicured lawn next to us on the stairs, casting me long looks before I finally asked, “What, Tate?”
“I am sorry for causing you unnecessary pain, Olivia,” he said, watching me closely. Important facts to note: he didn’t apologize for drugging me nor for attempting to extract information against my will; he didn’t regret those items. But it was more than I had gotten from the others, and, to be honest, I liked Tate. He allowed those in his house more freedom than most. I could appreciate that in a vampire.
“Apology accepted,” I said, looking back toward the driveway before adding softly, “You could have just asked.”
He cleared his throat. “I was hoping you would say that.” I should have seen that one coming.
“Ask away,” I said, leaning back against the stairs, forcing myself to relax.
“What are the consequences of sleeping with you?” he said warily, expecting one of my many blades on display to carve a piece of him.
“A person who sleeps with a succubus or incubus is bound to our emotions. The stronger the succ or incc, the stronger the emotions are felt,” I answered, feeling Blake had told him the same.
“And what if he no longer wants to feel everything you do?” he asked leery.
I sighed. “Then no more sex,” I said, leaning forward to watch Tate before adding, “Blake knows all of this. I told him everything I know.”
He nodded, looking towards the blooming night sky. “What will prolonged contact with you do to him? Will it hurt him?” he asked, his eyes yellowing as he looked back at me.
I wanted to be angry, wanted to tell him it was none of his fucking business, unless he was
fucking me, but I didn’t. He was Blake’s master and I certainly didn’t want to cause problems for him or make additional messes he would have to clean up. So, I put my big girl panties on, and, fuck, are they uncomfortable!
“I don’t know what it will do to him; I don’t believe he will suffer any ill effects. If I had, I wouldn’t have slept with him,” I answered, remarkably surprised at my maturity.
“He is family,” he said tensely, and I understood, nodding.
“I won’t hurt him, Tate,” I said softly.
He shook his head, smiling. “You really haven’t dated before, have you?”
“No, why?” I asked, suddenly very insecure.
“Have you ever been in love, Olivia?” Tate asked me, still smiling to my scowl.
“No,” I responded tightly, quickly.
He nodded, now watching the full dark littered with stars. “It’s a wonderful feeling, even if it is too fleeting.”
I nodded, happy to see the lights of a vehicle approaching. I wasn’t expecting the speed or the sudden stop that had the gravel flying.
“Olivia, you are so fucking lucky I don’t know your middle name,” said a very cranky Black man, throwing himself out of the Beast, “or I would use it to scold you for your disappearing act.”
“Hi, Jerry,” I said timidly. “Point of fact, I don’t actually have a middle name.”
“Don’t you even think of giving me that line,” he said, charging in front of the Beast to pull me standing, followed by shaking me properly. “Do you have any idea how worried we all were?”
I opened my mouth to answer but he charged right along, “And leaving poor Blake; the man was damn near crazed looking for you. And let’s not forget me,” he yelled.
I tilted my head at him. “Why are you yelling?”
Mercer came from the other side of the Beast. “The more upset they are, the more they care,” he said before walking to the house.
I squeezed Jerry’s forearm before he could shake me again. “Sorry,” I said simply as his lanky arms engulfed me.
“Bad enough I had to hear from Mercer you were back,” he muttered into my red hair.
“How did you two end up talking?” I asked, pulling back as we followed the rest into the house.
“With you being out of the picture, Hash hired me as his SNIPE, supernatural investigator of paranormal events,” he said shaking his head. “It’s a fancy way of saying I use magic in order to gain information from the crime scenes.”
I shrugged. “Glad he hired you.”
Jerry scoffed. “Like he had any other choice. I am the best in the business.”
“Does that mean you are finished carting around pain in the ass clientele?” I said bumping his shoulder good-naturedly as we entered the last resting place of Mr. Davis.
“Nah, this gig ain’t busy enough for me to quit my day job,” he answered, throwing an arm around my shoulders.
“So where is the dead guy?” Mercer asked, inhaling. “Doesn’t smell like death.”
“I’ll stay here and guard against return visitors,” Tate said, although I didn’t believe him for a single second as he pulled out his phone to make calls.
“It doesn't smell like death yet,” Blake corrected. “The kill is fresh,” he said, looking at me intently.
Blowing out a breath, I peered at Jerry, who had one raised black eyebrow, watching me. “I might have put a tracker on Steven.”
“The one who tried to kill you?” Mercer asked, snapping blue gloves over his worn hands.
“Yeah, that one. Anyway, as we were coming into the community, he was less than a mile away from here,” I said, wondering if they would come to the same conclusion I had.
Jerry was silent for a few moments as Mercer handed the rest of us gloves. Finally, Jerry asked, “You think he is trying to fuck your investigation?”
“No, I think he is playing some part for the puppet master,” I answered honestly.
He nodded. “Possibly.”
Mercer spoke up, “We will request an alibi for tonight.”
I nodded as we headed into the home office of the late Mr. Davis. One shot to the head finished him, no torture, no undead shifter, possibly a living shifter had done the dirty work. His dirty blond hair needed a cut and stuck out at odd angles as his eyes glazed over in death.
Unlike his students, he had died almost instantly in his plush office, his body still in the leather chair behind the matching deep red monster of a desk.
The men surrounded the corpse as I wandered into the library, taking in the fancy book titles. Most of them had to do with education, literary titles I had never heard of, but, judging from their leather-bound spines, must have been expensive.
Stopping short, I scuffed my boot against the hardwood floor. This book I knew. Pulling it down, I gently ran my hand over the cover, before reaching to the space where it had rested, my fingers probing for the secret lever. A click and a hiss greeted my search as Blake came up to my shoulder. “What you got there?” he asked, taking the book from my hands.
“Think of it as How to Be a Witch for Dummies, the ancient version,” I answered, watching the book case slide backwards, revealing a black abyss my eyes couldn’t see in.
“Who told you about that book?” Jerry asked, tucking it into his jacket pocket protectively.
“A witch,” I answered simply. The truth was far more complicated than that.
“That witch still alive?” Mercer asked, joining us.
“Nope, and I didn’t kill her either,” I answered before turning to Blake and asking, “Can you see in there?”
He nodded. “Can you?”
I shook my head, interlacing our arms. “Shall we?” I asked with a smile.
He nodded. Jerry braced his hands on my back, and I assumed Mercer would work something out.
Darkness pressed around us, as we left the well-lit office behind. Blake moved slowly and easily down the darkened corridor.
“Dammit,” Mercer cursed, and I smiled, leaning closer into the vampire I was developing a fondness for.
Blake pulled me closer, pausing for a moment. I could hear him flip a switch as the hidden room was showered in pale ambient light.
“Whoa,” I muttered, taking a step away from Blake.
“Son of a bitch,” Jerry added behind me.
“Devil worship? You can’t be serious,” Mercer said, pulling up the rear.
We all turned to level him with an annoyed gaze. “After all you have learned over the last few weeks, you still believe this to be the work of a devil?” Jerry asked, irritated.
“A devil, no, the devil,” Mercer said, growing confused as he looked around the dimly lit room at the hanging herbs.
Jerry shook his head, bending down to the pentagram in red. “Paint, no blood,” he reported. I nodded, blowing out a breath, taking in the ancient texts, the jars filled with hard-to-find ingredients such as bats, and the modern laptop sitting next to a new journal.
“Bingo,” I said, making my way to the journal as Blake sat down at the laptop.
“So what exactly does this tell us, except for the fact that the professor liked to dabble in the dark arts?” Mercer said, holding his hands wide, not daring to move farther into the space. Peeking at Jerry, I hid a smile behind Blake as Jerry stood up pointing a gloved finger at the clueless police officer.
“Dark arts? What is this, a damn video game?” Jerry asked, eyeballing Mercer
“Fine, what is the politically correct term for all this nonsense, witch?” Mercer asked, clearly not giving a damn about upsetting Jerry.
“First of all,” I said, “witch is an outdated and fairly offensive term, those who are true practitioners of the old ways prefer Wiccan and mage has been making a comeback. Secondly, just because there is a pentagram on the ground doesn’t make this devil worship.” More importantly, most of the supernatural community doesn’t believe in the existence of a devil or God, for that matter.”
“Wait, you’r
e telling me all you sups don’t believe in God?” Mercer asked, shocked as he moved a clump of thyme hanging from the ceiling cautiously.
“You have to understand,” Blake said, searching through the files, “many of us have been alive long enough to watch humans change, modify, or exploit their religion for personal gain; not to mention, we were present for the birth of their religions.”
I scoffed. “It doesn’t take hundreds of years to see that,” I added, not looking up,
“Granted,” Blake continued, “there are few who genuinely do good in this world; it doesn’t require a belief in a higher power.”
“What do you believe in?” Mercer asked Blake, tapping a glass of newt eyes.
“Don’t ask,” I said, watching him. “Each race believes in something different, and it’s all hogwash.”
Blake stopped typing to look at me. “Excuse me?” he said, shocked.
I rolled my eyes at him, ready to answer when Jerry yelled, “You gotta see this!”
Turning, we crossed the small room quickly to see the hidden trap door Jerry had discovered beneath the floorboards.
“What could have him so paranoid that he needed a hidden compartment in a hidden room?” I asked, looking over Jerry’s shoulder at the dark wooden box he had just opened.
I was shocked, flabbergasted, and that’s a word I don’t often use, listening to Jerry read off the complex experiments and tests used.
“The professor isolated a gene that indicates if a human would make a superior shifter or vampire?” Mercer asked, shocked. I forgot I hadn’t included him in Gunner’s earlier discovery. It didn’t matter; this was a supernatural issue not a human one.
Mr. Davis’s involvement and death were only proof humans did not belong in our affairs.
“Yes,” Jerry answered solemnly, “and guess who his test subjects were?”
“The same families that are now in the morgue,” I answered, leaning back in the black office chair staring at the dark wood ceiling. “How did a human stumble upon something we didn’t even know about?” I asked, turning to Jerry.
He shrugged. “Science,” he answered in one word. “I assume the answer must be here in his journals.”